At Charles Town Races Saturday night, the West Virginia Breeders' Classics card featured nine races for horses bred in the Mountain State, with $1 million in purses on the line. The evening was not only a showcase for state breds, but also for two regulars at the Charles Town, W. Va., track. Jockey Arnaldo Bocachico set a single-card record with eight wins from his nine mounts and the track's leading trainer Jeff Runco scored seven victories from his 16 starters.
Bocachico, a native of Puerto Rico, has called Charles Town his home track since he started riding in 2006. He logged his first career graded stakes win there in 2016, winning the Grade 3 Charles Town Oaks on Covey Trace, and scored his 2000th career victory in March. Saturday, he started the evening with a win in the West Virginia Vincent Moscarelli Memorial Breeders' Classics Stakes on Run to Daylight, the favorite. The streak continued with wins in all but Race 3, where Bocachico finished fourth. Seven of his winners were favorites.
Bocachico's eight victories from nine mounts best the record of seven on a Charles Town card set by jockey Travis Dunkelberger in 2000. In addition to Run to Daylight, Bocachico's winners included The Sky Is Falling (Race 2), Social Chic (Race 4), Door Buster (Race 5), Penguin Power (Race 6), Star of Night (Race 7), Muad'dib (Race 8), and Stowe Angel (Race 9). All but Door Buster were horses trained by Jeff Runco.
Runco, a regular on the West Virginia circuit and currently Charles Town's leading trainer with 101 wins, stands at number 12 on the list of winningest North American trainers, behind such names as Steve Asmussen, Todd Pletcher, Bill Mott, and D. Wayne Lukas. After a short career as a jockey, Runco started training in 1984, and, according to Equibase statistics, has 4,494 wins from 20,992 starters.
Owner David Raim also had five winners from his five starters the West Virginia Breeders' Classics card, all trained by Runco and ridden by Bocachico.
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